When we make this change, Google will disapprove all ads and
sites that are identified as being in violation of our revised
policy. Our system identified your account as potentially
affected by this policy change. We ask that you make any
necessary changes to your ads and sites to comply so that your
campaigns can continue to run.

While a company spokesperson said Google has had tight
restrictions on the adult category within its AdWords platform
from some time, there’s no denying that “porn” and sex-related
searches are among the most common on Google’s search engine.
According to the company’s AdWords Keyword Planner, searches for the words
“porn,” “sex,” “porno” and “free porn” almost reached 351 million
in May alone.

As a result of this AdWords policy change, it’s unclear how
Google’s bottom line will be affected. We’ve reached out to
Google to learn more, but in all likelihood, we will know more in
the coming months when the company posts its quarterly earnings
reports. Google will
announce earnings for its second quarter of fiscal 2014 on
July 17.

It's also unclear how this will
impact pornographic sites. We haven't been able to find any
estimates for how much of their revenue comes from
AdWords.

At least one high-ranking member of the adult industry was
surprised by Google’s decision.

“I was caught by surprise,” Theo Sapoutzis, chairman and CEO of
the AVN
Media Network, the world’s largest consolidator of adult
content, told CNBC. “I was one of the very first advertisers for
AdWords back in 2002. It’s something that’s been [untouched] for
12 years, so you don’t expect change is going to start
happening.”

TheMorality In
Mediagroup, which calls
itself “the leading national organization opposing pornography
and indecency,”claimed it was able to persuade Google’s decisionby meeting with the company and
listing it on its 2013 and 2014Dirty
Dozen Listsbecause of
“their involvement in and profit from pornography in Google Play,
Google Ads, YouTube and more.” Google, however, said, “We made
this decision as an effort to continually improve users’
experiences with AdWords.”

Now, the next question is if Google will expand this effort to
block the promotion of adult sites by applying this policy to its
search engine.